Sometimes I will switch out my water bottle with my tumbler, if I’m going to grab coffee. Most of the time I’ll usually carry my water bottle instead of my tumbler because water is more critical for me on a day to day basis.

In my purse, (which is a pencil bag, because pencil bags tend to have more pockets and are washable) I’ll carry my cards and cash, a small bottle of lotion, a comb, my business cards case, a barrette, extra hair ties, my lip balm, lipstick, eyeliner, my mini 3 in 1 stainless steel screwdriver key chain eyeglass repair tool, extra bobby pins (because you can never have enough), and a nail filer.

The only perishable and wasteful items I carry on a daily basis is my lip balm and my lipstick. I refill my bottle of lotion from my bulk lotion bottles. Anyone who uses hair ties knows that they tend to break and I haven’t yet found a good alternative to tie up my hair. I might lean towards going back to the scrunchie though. With the extra protective fabric around the hair tie, the life of the hair tie can last longer.

So there you have it. My purse is simple, and I don’t carry extra stuff around to the point where I can’t find anything in my bag. I tend to divide my items into smaller bags so that they’re grouped together in a more organized fashion. These are my day to day essential items, what do you carry around in your bag?

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Depending on the season, I participate in annual sport activities each year. Since I enjoy hiking, snowboarding and surfing each year and each needed emergency kits, I figured out a way to combine my emergency kits into one kit. I had to create a Sport Emergency Kit that would work all year round. So this is what I included in my kit…

This is just an example of what is in my Sport Emergency Kit. it’s an example to follow if you chose to. You can add to it or simply use it as a template for what you might have in your own kit. I hope this helps and I hope the kit comes in handy when the time comes. If you want to check out what clothing items I keep on hand for each sport, check out Zero Waste Closet- Part II.

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Toilet paper: The average U.S. consumer uses more than 20,805 sheets annually, contributing to a $5.7 billion industry for bathroom tissue. Unfortunately, I do use toilet paper, but I use toilet paper made from 100% recycled paper. It’s the one product that I consistently try to adjust and use less of. I did purchase a bidet that attached to my toilet, so that eases up my use of toilet paper- but I still use it.

When you think of producers of greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and resource depletion, toilet paper probably doesn’t join the list of products and industries that come to mind. But the natural resources that go into toilet paper should be taken into account. According to some estimates, approximately 7 million trees are used each year to make up the U.S.’s toilet paper supply.

The Forest

THE NATIONAL RESOURCE DEFENSE COUNCIL (NRDC) ESTIMATES THAT IF EVERY HOUSEHOLD REPLACED JUST ONE 500-SHEET ROLL OF VIRGIN FIBER TOILET PAPER WITH A 100 PERCENT RECYCLED FIBER ROLL, 423,900 TREES WOULD BE SAVED ANNUALLY. IMAGE COURTESY OF ALIAS 0591

Tiny Roll, Big Impact

The idea of using virgin wood for throwaway paper products seems silly, but it happens nearly 99 percent of the time. Toilet paper made of 100 percent recycled paper fiber makes up less than 2 percent of the market in the U.S.

However, toilet paper made of 100 percent recycled paper content, including high percentages of post-consumer recycled fibers, is becoming easier to find as national chain stores now carry major brands like Seventh Generation and Marcal.

It Doesn’t Stop at Toilet Paper

According to the American Forest and Paper Association, tissue-grade papers are generally categorized into three major categories:

At-home (consumer)

Found in the forms of toilet and facial tissue, paper towels, napkins and other sanitary items

Tissue-grade papers are typically made from virgin fiber rather than recycled fibers and are bleached with chlorine to make them look whiter and brighter. Like toilet paper, these tissue grades are widely available with recycled fiber content and chlorine-free bleach.

The Soiled Paper Dilemma

While tissue-grade paper is made from, well, paper, this particular material is actually not recyclable due to the nature of its usage. When we add grease to a paper towel, food residue to napkins and you-know-what to toilet and facial tissue, these items are typically rendered non-recyclable.

When paper products are recycled, they are mixed with water and turned into a slurry. Grease, oils and other soiling materials form at the top of the slurry and paper fibers cannot separate from the oils during the pulping process, rendering the batch useless.

“The oil causes great problems for the quality of the paper, especially the binding of the fibers,” said Terry Gellenbeck, a solid waste administrative analyst for the City of Phoenix. “It puts in contaminants, so when they do squeeze the water out, it has spots and holes.”

Other products typically found on paper products, like ink, tend to break down fast as they are usually non-petroleum based.

Helpful Guides

Greenpeace’s Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide – Greenpeace has created a guide as well as an iPhone application to help consumers find recycled and responsible paper products. The pocket guide ranks 18 popular toilet paper, paper towel, facial tissue and napkin brands on their use of recycled content, post-consumer recycled content and non-toxic chlorine compounds in the bleaching process.

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Trying to create zero trash for my cat is almost impossible. I’ve tried, but due to some medical conditions, it’s virtually impossible. I have a male cat and he was neutered when he was younger. Unfortunately, male cats who are neutered, are more prone to urinary tract infections and therefore, require special diet food that has a low sodium content. Also, in order for him to not develop another urinary tract infection, he needed fresh water constantly. We bought him a small drinking fountain which he helped himself to. These two requirements produced empty tin cans of cat UTI management food as well as charcoal filters.

As he aged, he developed Diabetes and requires insulin shots twice a day. This required insulin medication as well as insulin needles. He’s a large cat, but he’s always been a large cat so weight gain was his genetic default. Lucky for us, he’s always been an indoor and outdoor cat, so he always used the backyard as his giant toilet. But with him being an indoor and outdoor cat, he required flea medication. I’ve been asked “Why don’t you just make him an indoor cat? It would cut back on the flea medication trash that you produce.” But forcing an animal to stay inside when we clearly have outdoor roaming space for him seemed unnatural to me. I wanted him to roam free and go play outside when we weren’t home. So the diabetes and flea medication produced tin cans of glucose management food, insulin needles, insulin medication and the flea applicators.

Over the years, he also got into a few fights with other cats or raccoons that roamed the neighborhood. For those special occasions, he required medication and sometimes even surgery which produced trash as well. I usually return the pill bottles and jars to the veterinarian so they can dispose of it. I’m lucky that I live in an area that allows free medical waste dumping, and even if I didn’t, I know my veterinarian will collect the medical waste from his patients for a small fee.

As for toys, he never loved to play with a lot of toys. In fact, he really only likes his catnip pillow, shoelaces and metal chain necklaces . I had a catnip plant that I grew for him awhile back and once in awhile, I would dry the catnip leaves and compost the old catnip. I would then refill his pillow with new dry catnip. Unfortunately he liked it so much that he would lay on it and eventually crushed the life out of it. That too went into the compost bin. I’m lucky that he’s easily entertained. He also never wanted his own bed, he always just adopted any place in the house to sleep.

Entertainment = Catnip pillow, but I refill the catnip pillow with fresh catnip. He just likes to play with shoelaces and metal chain necklaces.

So the recyclable items that I do produce are the tin cans of UTI food and diabetic food. His insulin medication, insulin needles and other medications are also recycleable, but considered medical waste recycling. The charcoal filters and advantage flea medication are the items that do end up in the landfill. I actually have a separate jar of trash that comes from owning a cat. He also no longer uses the water fountain that used the charcoal filters, he requests fresh water from the faucet when he’s thirsty with a drawn out meow.

Trying to own a pet and not produce trash from them is quite difficult. I know this much, to take on a pet is a great amount of responsibility and it is not a simple responsibility to ignore. I am not a veterinarian and I do not know what nutrients he needs and the sufficient amount of each nutrient and vitamin, therefore I do not attempt to make cat food on my own. He has very few toys, only wants his catnip pillow, which I will stuff with fresh catnip and compost the old catnip.

I started this journey almost five years ago, so I’ve compiled a nice amount of Advantage Flea Medication applicators for cats as well as charcoal filters. He stopped using the water fountain about three years ago, so he hasn’t produced anymore trash from that. He probably won’t last through the end of this year, but it’s amazing to see how much owning a pet can add to your trash collection. Once you lay it all out and calculate the amount of trash that’s produced, it’s an eye opening realization of what you’re contributing to the landfill.

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I bought this shirt in 2000. The shirt is from Consolidated Skateboards, a great company. I bought it because the quote sparked my interest and I’ve never been able to let it go. It’s a simple red long sleeved shirt, with only the front print that you see, and nothing on the back. I never knew how much of an impact those words would be.

When people say that I’m simplifying my life, I jokingly call my system “Being Strategically Lazy”.

When I decided to start living a zero waste life and because I was eliminating so much from my life, I was also eliminating the amount of storage area I actually needed. So here are a few things I decided to get rid of:

Dresser: I use one shelf now and I hang up the rest of the items

End Tables: I use two ottomans that have lids which I can flip over and use as mini portable coffee tables

TV stand: My TV currently sits on a book shelf. I’m planning to use a projector that will be mounted to my wall to watch movies/TV (but that’s for the future)

Filing cabinet: I digitized all of my documents and keep a small folder of the legal documents.

Nightstand: I use my drafting table stool as my stand and I made a shelf to sit at the bottom of it, so I could at least place items down. I also created a pocket so that I could have a location to place my phone when it was attached to the charger as well.

Bookshelf: I donated of one of my two bookshelves because I had digitized almost all of my books so I didn’t need the piece of furniture anymore.

Futon: I donated my futon and replaced it with a couch 🙂 So it’s technically a replacement piece

I have:

1 four level bookshelf

1 couch with two ottomans

1 bed

1 drafting table, which I use as my desk

1 hope chest, which I use as my seat at my desk

1 “nightstand” (I use the chair from my drafting table set as my nightstand)

1 dining table with 6 wood fold up chairs

1 IKEA Poang Chair

I think getting rid of the dresser made the biggest impact because it wasn’t just the frame of the dresser or the drawers themselves, but it was also the amount of the contents stored within each drawer. There’s another article I read which might be of interest for those who want to read more about this: 15 Pieces of Furniture You May Not Really Need

It certainly helped me look at the use of furniture differently. Here’s my little nightstand contraption. I made the pocket from an old pair of jeans and I used pink shoelaces as ties for hanging the pocket. I used an old picture frame as a flat surface on this nightstand and attached it with some sticky velcro dots that were left over from another furniture set. I found a bag of pink shoelaces at my aunt’s house, she was going to throw it out, so I took it home. I keep all of my velcro straps because velcro is amazingly versatile and I keep extra metal rings and shoelaces for projects like these.

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We have 168 hours in a week, so I decided to outline my hours during the day- here’s what I found: (SEE CHART BELOW) Interesting right? My assumptions for my work week was pretty accurate- I always feel like I never have time during the week but I have TOO much time during the weekend. Now it’s time to really use those hours to my advantage! It really is amazing what you see once you write it down on paper. I never realized that I had 4 hours of free time per day during my weekdays and 12.5 hours of free time during my weekends- it’s kinda nuts! although I know I have to crunch my time during my week, but then again… I can always use my down time during the week to have nice conversations with my mom or (eventually) hang out with my family and friends 🙂